


Mockingbird

by Quitebrilliantindeed



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Captivity, Freedom, Gen, Singing, Songs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-26
Updated: 2013-06-26
Packaged: 2017-12-16 07:18:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/859403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quitebrilliantindeed/pseuds/Quitebrilliantindeed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Help me make the most, of freedom and of pleasure, nothing ever lasts forever."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mockingbird

**Author's Note:**

> I desperately wanted to write some Bioshock-- and here it is! I fear this almost starts to verge on poetry at point. I don't know. I hope you all enjoy it anyway!

Elizabeth’s little singing career did not begin until her imprisonment.

Oh sure, she has faded memories of a little girl—a little girl she thinks is herself—babbling out wet strings of off-key notes and tapping her tiny feet to the spirited rhythms of her Columbia home.

“Oh, let her sing!” A woman’s voice would cry out. “Do you hear her? What a future she will have!”

“Perhaps one day she will sing to our blessed people,” The man would reply. “God has granted her such a precious gift, hasn’t he? It would be a pity to let it go to waste.”

Only once Elizabeth had gained a few years on her tender age did she look at this memory with bitterness. If her gift was ‘so precious’ if it was ‘from God,’ then why lock it away in this cage? Why not let her sing and dance on the cobbled streets of Columbia, and beyond? Let her take this skill to the farthest corners of America, to the lights of Paris, and to the mysteries of the East and beyond!

How much trouble would that really be?

She soon realized that the memory wasn’t so much a memory as a vague wish for freedom—a little fantasy of what it might be like to have actual parents, not captors, not a giant leather bird. However bitter it made her, that revelation gave her one spark of hope—a fresh desire to let her voice be heard. She began to read about music—about the theory, the means and methods, the famous musicians of old, the rising stars of new! She sang as she walked, sang as she read, sang as she brushed her hair each morning—sang every moment she could until her lips were cracked and her throat turned dry, and hoped endlessly that someone might notice those desperate little cries.

In the end, there are only two times a day when a song isn’t bursting from her lips—when she sleeps, which is rather obvious, and when she’s opening tears. The concentration required for the latter leaves no room for any diversions—not even one as small as a little tune. Nonetheless, she made a habit of singing a line or two before she opens a rift—a prayer of sorts, a wish. Eventually, she came to think that if she doesn’t sing, the magic won’t work, and the tear won’t open.

Elizabeth knew this was silly. But she didn’t really care—it’s not like there was anyone else around to judge her.

That superstitious little ritual eventually passed—but now and then, she would still whisper a line from a folk song or two, or a favourite ballad, under her breath before reaching into those glowing hazes of light.

But even that stops, once she is free. Elizabeth simply didn’t have the breath to sing out there—she had to produce a turret, or create some cover, and all while dodging storms of bullets—and making sure that Booker was dodging them as well.

Maybe this isn’t what she expected, when she said she wanted to leave her captivity behind, but she didn’t regret taking this step. She would gladly sacrifice song and safety for this exhilarating new world of sunlight, of danger, of _other human beings._

Even when Elizabeth sits alone in a prison cell, she does not regret her choice to follow that man. In a strange sort of mourning, one mixed with hope and determination, she sings and sings, under her breath so that the guards might not strike her, until he finally comes to steal her away once again.

After that, it seemed like days before Elizabeth could sing again—and in some ways, it truly was. What did time matter here anyway? She could be in the past, future, or somewhere beyond, all at once, or not at all. She needn’t worry about such trivial things.

She held her father’s head beneath the water, and slowly counted the bubbles as they rose from his parted lips. She leaned in ever so slightly and whispered out one more song—careful and soothing— into the pond below:

_“There's a room where the light won't find you_  
 _Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down_  
 _When they do I'll be right behind you.”_

Then time pulled life away from them all, and she was but a small babe in a crib once again.


End file.
